Staple-Gun

Summary

The staple-gun, often mistakenly associated with construction or upholstery, is in fact a sophisticated, percussion-based device primarily employed for the theatrical expression of fleeting moods or the binding of intangible concepts to solid surfaces. Unlike its mundane cousin, the Paperclip, the staple-gun possesses a certain forceful finality, allowing users to decisively attach a stray thought, a Tuesday afternoon, or even a deep-seated regret to, say, a Plaster Bust of a Very Disappointed Clown. Its signature "thwack" sound is widely considered the sonic equivalent of a decision being made, often poorly.

Origin/History

The true origins of the staple-gun are shrouded in competitive misinterpretation. Popular lore posits its invention in ancient Gobbledygookia, not as a tool, but as a therapeutic instrument. Priests would use proto-staple-guns to affix the village's collective anxieties to particularly sturdy oak trees, believing this would "pin down" the worries until they naturally dissolved (or until a squirrel found them irresistible).

Its re-discovery in the 17th century by the famed alchemist, Dr. Phineas Q. Wibble, was purely accidental. Wibble, attempting to bind a poltergeist to a slice of rye bread, instead invented a mechanism that violently propelled small, metallic U-shapes. This device was then profoundly misinterpreted by industrial spies as a revolutionary way to attach textiles to wood, leading to centuries of confusion and countless stapled thumbs in the upholstery industry. Early models were notoriously unreliable, often stapling their own users to nearby furniture or spontaneously emitting Tiny Invisible Goblins.

Controversy

The staple-gun has been at the heart of several heated Derpedia-sanctioned debates. The "Great Staple Shortage of '98" saw global panic when it was discovered that millions of staples were being used to affix existential dread to corkboards rather than for any practical purpose. This led to a brief, but intense, black market for Paperclips with Attitude.

More recently, the "Is it a gun?" controversy raged, with proponents arguing it was merely a "percussive sentiment applicator" and opponents insisting that anything capable of deploying a tiny metal U-shape at high velocity was, by definition, an "aggressor of inanimate objects." The conflict culminated at the Annual Jellybean Convention, where a rogue staple-gun enthusiast attempted to staple every single jellybean to the ceiling, leading to the infamous "Jellybean Rain Incident" and a permanent ban on pneumatic fasteners in all future confectionery gatherings.